Frankenstein 201

“A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.”

— Dr. Frankenstein, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Over two centuries ago, the world witnessed the Year Without a Summer, when apocalyptic weather and an agricultural crisis were reported in parts of North America, Europe and Asia. These aberrant conditions had been triggered by the dispersal of ash from the massive volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) the year before. That indelible summer, crops in New England were assaulted by a deadly frost. The Yangtze Valley flooded. In Switzerland, an ice dam formed. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was just 19 years old at the time, and spent the season in Geneva in the company of her lover, Percy Shelley, and fellow Romantic writers Lord Byron and John William Polidori. One rainy, freezing evening, they challenged each other to a competition to see who could write the most terrifying horror story. The result, published three years later, was a groundbreaking book, fully titled Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

Many of us are familiar with the story, if not by reading it, then through popular culture’s often caricatured representations of the monster. But recall that the book is not named after the monster. Shelley’s title, as well as her cautionary subtitle, refer to Victor Frankenstein, the doctor who awakens this…